After completing this workshop, students will be able to: •Connect to databases and read data. •Query and update databases by using commands. •Perform transactional operations. •Perform disconnected operations programmatically. •Perform disconnected operations by using Visual Studio 2005 wizards. •Perform XML operations on disconnected data. •Read and write XML data. •Process XML data by using the Document Object Model DOM. Key Topics: Unit 1: Connecting to Databases and Reading Data This unit introduces the fundamental skills required to connect to a database and read data from the database. It describes how to use ADO.NET data providers to connect to various different kinds of databases, and how to execute a query that returns a scalar value from the database. It also describes how to use connection pooling to achieve scalability, and how to handle connection events and exceptions.